BIRDS OF EGYPT. 249 



251. Gallinago media, Leach. Common Snipe. 



The Common Snipe ranges throughout Egypt and Nubia, 

 and is very abundant wherever there is suitable ground for it, 

 as, for instance, throughout Lower Egypt, the Fayoom, and 

 around the lake near Erment. There are perhaps few lo- 

 calities better suited to this bird than the large marshes of 

 Lower Egypt, where, in February, I have killed over forty 

 couple in a day. By the end of that month their numbers 

 rapidly decrease ; yet towards the end of March I one 

 day killed twenty couple in the same marsh. Up the Nile 

 at Dendera I have met with them as late as the 24th of 

 March. 



Top of the head, back, and scapulars black, streaked with 

 chestnut and yellow ; quills black ; wing-coverts dusky, edged 

 with buff ; uuderparts white, more or less shaded with ferrugi- 

 nous brown on the cheeks, throat, and upper part of the chest, 

 the latter parts spotted with dusky ; thighs also barred with 

 dusky ; tail, which consists of 14 feathers, black, tipped with 

 white and barred with ferruginous brown ; beak brown, 

 shading into dusky at the tip and flesh-colour at the base ; 

 legs greenish slate-colom- ; irides dark brown. 



Entire length 11*5 inches; culmen 2"8; wing, carpus to 

 tip, 4*9 ; tarsus 1'2. 



Fig. Gould, B. of Eur. pi. 321. 



252. Gallinago gallinula (Linn.). Jack Snipe. 



The Jack Snipe has the same range in Egypt as the last 

 species ; and I have likewise procured it near Dendera as late 

 as the 24th of March. 



